On the inside

So this is how it is on the inside... I've attended the PCA/ACA conference three times over my graduate career. Two years ago, I presented as part of the Stephen King group, and last year with the sf/fantasy group. The King group, and by extension, the members of the horror section, are a really welcoming group of scholars, and even though I wasn't presenting with them, they invited me to the group dinner last year.

So this year, when I saw that two of my new friends were putting together a panel, I decided I've love to present something with them. Last week, all I did was send a preliminary email asking if my idea would fit with their panel and they emailed back saying, "sure, you're in... what's the title of the paper so we can publish it?"

The first time I sent an abstract off for a conference, I sweated over it for a month, ran it past two professors, and got a reference from a professor in order to bolster my proposal. Now, I just email a couple of friends, tell them what I'm thinking, and they say I'm in. What a difference from that first experience! So this is how it works when you're inside... I gotta say, it's pretty nice!